In late March, I expressed the idea of publishing an English newspaper to my English teacher. With the support of my teacher, I made an attempt. On a weekend morning, I found an article about ChatGPT and Genshin Impact online, did some formatting, added Chinese annotations, and sent this rough first edition to my English teacher.
After receiving approval from my English teacher, I strengthened my confidence. When I arrived at school, I asked the English teacher about the expectations for this newspaper. Both of us originally wanted this newspaper to become a platform for year section students to write in English. This newspaper could provide solid English materials for year section students to share and also help improve their English abilities.
In this edition, we organized a writing activity for the entire year section, titled "Present and Future," mainly to let students express their subject selection intentions and reasons in English. Although only two students submitted entries, it was still a good attempt at a submission system.
After the initial version of this newspaper was released, the English teacher explained the main content of it to the students in English class and mentioned that it would be printed for everyone.
On the second weekend, I included the revised submissions and a character story, filling a total of two A3 paper sheets with four pages, and then handed it over to the English department.
After the newspaper was distributed to the year section, it received some feedback. However, when I asked each class about their opinions on the newspaper, they mentioned that the content was too difficult, and the English department also informed me that it did not fit the current learning situation. When I read this newspaper myself, I found that many words were not annotated in Chinese, and most of these words were not in the school's dictionary. (Some gamers wanted to read it but couldn't understand it at all)
Before and after the release of this newspaper, I discussed it with many people. The enthusiasm for this newspaper in the year section was generally low, as everyone was busy with exams, homework, and had no mood to read a newspaper, let alone an English newspaper. Before the second issue was released, I often felt uncertain myself. Finally, a classmate encouraged me: "As long as one person is willing to read it, then it is useful, at least for them."
In the second issue, following a down-to-earth concept, we gathered some students from the year section to compile the newspaper, which was printed this week. This issue only had one sheet with two pages, but it included four articles written by me and my classmates.
After the second issue was printed, the English teacher discussed with me the idea of having students come up to talk about the newspaper. This Thursday, I went up on stage to talk about the first and second articles I wrote, reading them aloud and pointing out unfamiliar words, phrases, complex sentences, and non-finite clauses encountered during the reading. On Saturday, another student talked about the third article.
The practice of this English newspaper is not over yet. After the first issue was printed, some students actively approached me to discuss editing ideas and expressed their willingness to participate in editing the newspaper. After the second issue was printed, even more students had their own ideas and wanted to share and express things they liked and wanted to share with their year section classmates through the newspaper.